I was actually on site at the Bundeskanzleramt and they had requirements of being able to install the entire server stack airgapped. We ended up building quite a cool delivery method based on Nix to ship the whole closure of the system and the containers inside and spin up a Kubernetes cluster with it. I'm wondering if it is still being used.
Amazing to see it's still going strong :)
> PVC backing
Yeh. But wire's storage is based on Cassandra which handles replication of storage. So you could deploy it on local nvme drives as well using a local storage CSI.
That's also how the wire.com cloud is/was run. Large Cassandra cluster on top of EC2 Instance Store as opposed to EBS.
> first job out of college 7 years ago
> Amazing to see it's still going strong
What I'm saying is - just because the BSI authorizes something, doesn't mean that it has to reach the Bundestag ;)
Meanwhile the rest of Europe (and much of the rest of Germany) seems to have converged on Matrix as a genuine open standard with various different commercial vendors (Element, Rocket Chat, Famedly, connect2x etc), avoiding vendor lock and so giving actual digital sovereignty: https://element.io/matrix-in-europe
Any idea why Signal is deemed a "commercial platform" by DBT administration?
[1] https://www.samyoung.co.nz/2025/03/building-better-idiot.htm...
“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.”
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/6711-a-common-mistake-that-...
the best on ux is probably telegram, but i'm trying to move a few people off it anyway
You can run your own matrix server but tbh it’s easier for someone else to do it.
Not to mention the obvious advantages of their bridges into the closed networks of WhatsApp/fb/x/instagram etc
here you have chart comparison
https://www.messenger-matrix.de/messenger-matrix-en.html
and alternative
https://www.securemessagingapps.com
personally I like Element (Matrix) and Threema
edit: btw. signal best UX? do they finally show users how to force send unencrypted SMS or you still have figure it out with google? I remember their great UX when they were forcing PIN verification with nag screens taking half or whole screen, which was the last drop I moved with whole family away from that PoS, let alone how unreliable it was, whole network down because admin in US sleeping waiting hours until he fix it, their approach (aka hatred) to users reminds me Firefox devs, left Signal even before it became popular
But since this whole ordeal started, I'm divided where to place the blame (besides the attacker, of course):
- Can we really victim-blame someone for falling for an attack? Sure, people in positions this important should know better, but I don't think we should put the blame on the victim. - Should we blame Signal for even providing the functionality that allowed the phishing in the first place? Signal announced changes that supposedly makes phishing harder, so apparently, something could've been improved before? - Should we blame the software-world entirely that having credentials that can be shared is even a thing? (Looking at passkeys) - Should we blame society that the knowledge about phishing attacks isn't ingrained into every person? (being a bit hyperbolic here) - Should we blame the administrative staff that allowed exposed politicians to even have apps that make phishing possible? It would be possible to make a super-secure messenger that needs much more verification than just "having the credentials". It's just super annoying and impractical for most people. Should we prevent exposed politicians from even having access to not super-secure messengers?
I feel like things could be improved to prevent phishing attacks in the future. I just don't know what is the most sensible point to start.
Also doesn’t help that the humans doing the legislating tend to be of the “I print out my emails” generation
The median age of Bundestag members is 45.4
https://data.ipu.org/parliament/DE/DE-LC01/
In the US Senate It's 63.9.
She thinks she was "hacked" on signal, and now wants to switch to something which is clearly better! Let's wait where she will want to go once she gets "hacked" there too...
While there are valid reasons for germans not to want their politicians to use private messenger apps on their private phones for official business, and american ones at that, this switch would of course change nothing about all of these problems. But at least they can claim they did something, right?
Personally, I am starting to think we should ban politicians from using smartphones altogether possibly followed by other technological restrictions. It is part of my: "They Will Hate it: Good" portfolio of ideas to improve the world or at least make it a little more funny.
As so often, the biggest GDPR problem is missing enforcement.
But actual enforcement of GDPR has always been shoddy. First the “legitimate use” loophole, now this.
It’s a bit ironic that heise does this, since they probably have one of the most sensitive readerships to this.
So, national messengers, controlled by experts, that archive communication and run on trusted hardware, would be the best solution for the work of democratic goverments I would think.
Of course, the possibility of software quality and security experts in service of the goverment is probably just wishful thinking.
Good idea, let's all live in peace and harmony. (But first we need to sanction and regime change all the bad countries.)